2009-07-31

It's the Herring Run Watershed Center on Belair Road in northeast Baltimore. LEED's NC rating covers Newly Constructed buildings and extensively renovated old ones. Gold is the second highest certification level based on a 110 point system.

• Writing a letter to a delegate or senator regarding a particular issue or piece of legislation, or advocating a community need

Which gave me an idea:

Students in Baltimore County could lobby the Maryland General Assembly to repeal the 75-hour service-learning graduation requirement. Andget service-learning credits for it!

Sounds like fun to me, and for a worthy cause. Win-win!

p.s. I'm serious about this. If any high school students in the BaltoNorth area* would like to get organized and do something along these lines, send me an email. I'd be happy to help out with ideas, publicity, or introductions to some legislators in Annapolis.

*The BaltoNorth areas corresponds roughly to the districts for Dulaney High School, Loch Raven High School and Towson High School. And perhaps Pikesville High School too.

UPDATE: The Sun's dead tree headline was relatively lively and interesting: "Service-learning in classroom stirs debate". But for some reason they toned it down online to the boring: "Reflecting on service learning".

2009-07-26

[They] evaluated more closely than before the effects of curves on young arms [. . . and . . . ] compared the forces across the elbows of pitchers as they fired fastballs and curves. [. . .] Each study concluded that curves are less stressful than fastballs and, based on the data collected, contributed little, if at all, to throwing injuries in youth players.

[Dr. James] Andrews cited several limitations of the study. The fact that it was conducted entirely in a lab also needed to be considered, he said. Under game conditions when youth pitchers are fatigued, Andrews suggested, curves could be dangerous.

“I just operated on one kid this morning,” he said. “At age 12, he tore his ulnar collateral ligament in two. His travel ball coach called 30-something curveballs in a row. He became fatigued. Then he threw one that snapped his elbow.”

Mark wrote an excellent article but the headline (written by a someone else presumably) was simplistic and misleading:

2009-07-25

Since much of the center-right libertarian punditocracy seems to think that (1) Obama's honeymoon is over and (2) ObamaCare is sinking*, I decided now would be a good time to start my own tiny local campaign to point out the micro problems with our healthcare system as I (and my extended family) come across them in the real, outside-the-Beltway world.

For the next week or so--maybe longer--I'll be posting about recent experiences some of my family members have had with Lyme disease and colonoscopy screening.

2009-07-23

Although the book is pessimistic in many ways, it's written with humor and elegance. Taleb is blunt, but thoughtful and thorough too. He's original in his thinking and also in his writing style. He demonstrates a broad, deep and interconnected understanding of many subjects--from statistics and finance to literature and philosophy. He tells entertaining stories about dry topics. And he bridges the gap between academics and practitioners, apparently without breaking a sweat.

It's difficult--and probably expensive--to figure out what people were thinking when they committed a crime. So I'm guessing that prosecution of nearly every hate crime case costs significantly more to prosecute than an equivalent "non-hate" case.

Here's video of Eric Holder dancing around legitimate questions about the bill. He seems unable to cite specific cases or statistics in support of the bill. Probably because there aren't any.

My prediction: any law based on S. 909 will cost plenty but do nothing to reduce the frequency of hate crimes.

UPDATE: A definition:[S. 909] adopts the definition of "hate crime" as set forth in the Violent Crime Control and Law Enforcement Act of 1994 (i.e., a crime in which the defendant intentionally selects a victim . . . because of the actual or perceived race, color, religion, national origin, ethnicity, gender, disability, or sexual orientation of any person).

2009-07-18

But I miss the pronunciations from a few years back. For some reason Phil stopped saying "LEAK-y gas" has become LEE-quee gas (for Liquigas). And Bob seems to have dropped his trademark "Tour DAY France". Now it's just the standard "Tour de FRONCE" for him.

We are introducing new approaches to make research more reproducible, reusable and reliable,’ Professor De Roure said. ‘Research Objects are self-contained pieces of reproducible research which we will share in the future like papers are shared today.’

Unless you're familiar with the concept of "objects" through software or architecture, the concept can be tough to grasp. But it is very powerful.

2009-07-16

... for years, every state developed its own curriculum, standards and tests. That process will likely change soon. For a good story on the subject, go to Education Week....This year, Maryland and 45 other states decided to jointly develop a common group of standards for what should be taught in kindergarten through high school. ...[a list of who] will be writing and reviewing the new national or "common core" standards for math and language arts [...] here.

One of our most common mistakes is to make the mission statement into a kind of hero sandwich of good intentions. It has to be simple and clear. As you add new tasks, you de-emphasize and get rid of old ones. You can only do so many things. Look at what we are trying to do in our colleges. The mission statement is confused - we are trying to do fifty different things. It won't work, and that's why the fundamentalist colleges attract so many young people. Their mission is very narrow. You and I may quarrel with it and say it's too narrow, but it's clear.

Arnold of Rugby, the greatest English educator of the nineteenth century, whocreated the English public school, defined its mission as making gentlemen out ofsavages.

Compare this to the BCPS mission statement, which is too long for my taste and comes too close to the problematic "hero sandwich":

... provide a quality education that develops the content[,] knowledge, skills, and attitudes that will enable all students to reach their maximum potential as responsible, life-long learners and productive citizens.

For good measure, here's the "vision" statement that BCPS came up with:

Baltimore County Public Schools’ graduates will have the knowledge, skills, and attitudes to reach their potential as responsible, productive citizens in a global economy and multicultural society.

*If you can find it, listen to the audioversion. His rumbly Viennese accent is soothing and inspiring, and his personality shines through.

TIME is one of the last places that tries to satisfy the intellectually curious.

Mmmm-kay.

Exhibit II is a piece by Josh Tyrangiel, who writes about his attempt to bankrupt the New York Yankees by overeating at a luxury box buffet. Tyrangiel is Stein's boss (a factoid that I picked up from Stein's navel-gazing effort).

I was gifted a $325 ticket to the new Yankee Stadium to see Satan's pinstriped nine play my beloved Baltimore Orioles. It turns out that $325 buys not just an excellent seat but access to the all-you-can-eat buffet in the superswanky Legends Suite.

The plan:

[It] was simple: eat enough so that at the end of the season, the accountants would say ... We lost so much on concessions that night that we can no longer afford to steal a small-market team's best starting pitcher."

I fasted all day [in preparation]...

Tyrangiel serves up standard MSM snark delivered from on high and down low -- with a grating tone that mixes the sensibilities of middle school and the IvyLeague. And he bites the hands that feed him:

Sure enough, upon entering the Legends Suite with my ludicrously expensive [free] ticket ... After a survey of the rest of the buffet ... I began to wonder where my seat was.

It goes on:

Turns out you can't really see the game from the buffet area, and it dawned on me that I had been in a room like this before — at Foxwoods Resort Casino. During a brief foray into high-stakes gambling, a friend and I got comped and dove into a mountain of shrimp and lobster tails before stepping out into the casino jacked up on seafood and self-loathing. Well, the Legends Suite is just like that. So many bankers and so much excess that I felt kind of gross for enjoying myself so much.

Hunter Thompson sans personality, insight, talent and style.

More self-reference and cynical snark-as-humor, plus gluttony:

When I arrived at my seat — after grabbing a movie-theater-size bag of peanut M&Ms ($5) to tide me over for the walk — I could admit to being impressed. Third row behind the Yankee dugout. So close I could see the spot where Alex Rodriguez injects his steroids. The great thing? That statement's not even slanderous.

2009-07-02

According to Jerry Bowyer, business people think Obama is failing at this. Or at least they are behaving that way:

America isn't hiring precisely because of government policy. Small business owners, who are usually the first into and the first out of the job pool, are standing by the fence and watching. They are paralyzed by regulatory uncertainty. If they hire someone who ends up doing poorly, will they be able to fire that person? Will they have to pay their health care bills after they've been terminated? If so, for how long? ...

Jobs aren't languishing despite the government's best efforts. They're languishing because of them.